Between hierarchies and markets: How street‐level bureaucratic autonomy leads to policy innovations

Stéphanie Barral () and Ritwick Ghosh
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Stéphanie Barral: Université Gustave Eiffel
Ritwick Ghosh: ASU - Arizona State University [Tempe], University of Denver

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Abstract: Although street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) play a key role in the implementation of market-based instruments (MBIs), their participation is widely understudied. This paper addresses this blind spot by engaging the concept of street-level bureaucratic policy entrepreneurship. Using the case of conservation banking, a market-based environmental policy in the United States, we explore why this novel instrument has only been adopted in a handful of jurisdictions. We examine both non-adoption and adoption of conservation banking to find that SLBs are likely to engage in such entrepreneurial acts when a new policy form is particularly useful in legitimizing regulatory enforcement. Implementing a MBI is, however, not straightforward. Organizational conditions can restrain SLB autonomy to implement MBIs, preferring instead to persist with baseline policies, which further underscores the importance of SLB risk-taking behavior. SLBs must strategically straddle their unique position between the market and the hierarchy to enroll different actors into the new policy arrangement, all within dynamic political-economic conditions.

Keywords: Autonomy; Hierarchy; Market‐based instrument; Organizational conditions; Street‐level bureaucrat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-05
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Published in European Policy Analysis, 2023, ⟨10.1002/epa2.1178⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04158390

DOI: 10.1002/epa2.1178

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